Last Saturday (April 29), the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announced its production figures for the first quarter of 2023. A year ago, SOCAR submitted its quarterly report 10 days earlier.
In 2021, SOCAR’s quarterly report was published on April 16, and in 2020 – on April 14. It is clear from SOCAR’s website that these reports are published late every year; although SOCAR in the latest report emphasized its successes with the use of digital technologies. That is, the weak performance of computer technology cannot be blamed for data processing (since 2016, SOCAR, in cooperation with the American IBM, has even used artificial intelligence to process long-term data on downhole information).
It should be noted that SOCAR also discloses some data of republican significance in its report.
Thus, according to SOCAR, in January-March 2023, Azerbaijan exported 6,436 thousand tons of oil and 6,332.4 mcm of gas. SOCAR claimed that in January-March 2022, 6,656.3 thousand tons of oil and 5,883.9 mcm of gas were sold outside Azerbaijan. Thus, in the first quarter, Azerbaijan’s oil exports decreased by 220.3 thousand tons, and gas exports increased by 448.5 mcm.
On April 11 of this year, according to the quarterly report of the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan, the volume of oil and gas exports totaled 6,376 thousand tons and 6.5 bcm. For example, in quarterly reports SOCAR does not disclose the production volumes of “Azneft,” its mining structure. In addition, SOCAR does not report what volumes of hydrocarbons it accounted for from the country’s mega projects: Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (oil and associated gas) and “Shah Deniz” (natural gas and condensate).
Caspian Barrel
